Improve your English by speaking to yourself

Hi, folks. Welcome back to engVid. So, it has often been said that to really become

fluent in a language, you need to be dreaming in that language. Now, this isn't a tip on

how you can dream in English, but it is a lesson where we look at ways of trying to

speak to yourself in English. And sometimes, speaking in your non-first language can be

kind of quite interesting. There's something kind of exotic about it. So, I'll be looking

at the kind of things you might say to yourself, and I'll also be looking at a number of quotes

that we might get inspiration from. This isn't, like, some kind of self-help lesson, but I

noticed today when I was speaking to myself, I've got quite a lot of work that I'm doing

at the moment, and I was feeling a little bit tired. I noticed that I kept on saying

things like "Come on", and then not using particularly nice vocabulary towards myself.

I was like, hmm, I wonder if there are other things that I might say to myself that is

slightly better English. Now, I think there are two extremes with this. People are either

quite harsh, almost like flagellatory, like they're punishing themselves with the way

they talk to themselves, but the opposite extreme, which I'm not a huge fan of either,

is the world of sort of wiffy-woffy affirmations, which personally, I sort of doubt whether

they have huge amount of effect. People sort of write out a number of times, and I tried

it once myself, saying things like "I look for positivity in all things. I look for positivity

in all things. I need to go and do some work, but I'm doing my affirmations and I'm writing

them out." In every moment - this is another affirmation - in every moment of my day, I

radiate calmness and tranquility. No, I don't. I am still within myself. So, for me, these

don't kind of quite resonate, and if I try to say to that - say these things to myself

when I was trying to work really hard, it'd just be sort of - they don't mean anything

to me. So, I was saying this is kind of one extreme of trying to be super, super, super

nice to yourself, and the other extreme is being particularly harsh. I've got one friend

who is an explorer, and he's often doing huge physical feats, and he often sort of talks

to himself by his surname, which is quite sort of formal and unfriendly. "Put yourself

together", and then his surname. So, when we use our surnames, it is a little bit unfriendly.

So, I started thinking about, well, what are the kind of things that you might say to yourself?

And as learners of English as a foreign language, who this video is principally for, I think

it's an interesting exercise and a way in which you can improve and be thinking more

in your English.

Now, someone quite close to me has a password on her computer, which is "all4", and then

the person's name that, you know, she's doing a really difficult job, and so every time

she's typing in that password, she's thinking, "I am doing this for", because of this person.

"All4soandso", so that's quite a sort of simple but positive thing that you might be sort

of thinking. "Why am I doing this? I am doing this for this person." Very simple one. "Come

on, let's go." Don't know what you think about that, but it's kind of maybe more fun to say

in your language, which is not first English. If I was saying, like, "Venga, vamos", like,

it's more fun than saying, "Come on, let's go." One step at a time, one step at a time,

so we're just focusing on the first and immediate thing that we need to do, and then we'll deal

with whatever's next later.

And then I started pouring through lots of different quotes, and I tried to find the

ones that I felt you could repeat a line in your sort of normal working life just to keep

you on track and kind of keep focused on something. So, this is a very well-known quote, Neil

Armstrong, first man on the moon. "One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."

So, he is the man, he is taking one small step onto the moon, but at the same time he's

doing that, it represents a huge leap, a huge jump forward in the advancement of human endeavor,

yeah? What humans can do. We can now travel to the moon. So, how could you use this? You

could just say to yourself, "One small step, one small step, that's all you're doing, going

the next step in front of the other."

And then a quote from... Yeah, I should preface this by saying, I'm not saying these are the

quotes that you should use. Like, I've drawn upon the influences that are familiar to me,

and you know, that's my context in which I am operating. You know, there are viewers

from all different religions, and cultures, and countries, and you will have your own

sources of inspiration, and you should maybe use them. But, if you're looking for quotes

in English, you know, you might want to use a couple of mine, you might want to find your

own, you know? This is just what I have found.

St. Francis, "First do what's necessary, then do what's possible, then the impossible shall

come." So, that's... It gives a nice perspective, yep. You don't try and do the impossible,

the huge great thing, first of all, you're, you know, you're building. You go... Again,

it's that idea of one step in front of another. First you do what you have to do, what's necessary,

and then you go a little bit further, and you keep on exploring the next thing that

you are able to do. Okay, I've got some more sources of inspiration for you now. Okay,

time for our next one.

Confucius, Chinese philosopher, "It does not matter how slowly we get there, as long as

we do not stop." So, many of these quotes, there's a feeling of forward movement, yep,

keeping going. St. Jerome, this guy was a... Lived about 1,500 years ago, was some very

serious scholar, but his quote here sounds to me like some kind of rapper. I think he'd

be rivaling Kanye West on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury. "Good, better, best, never

let it rest, till your good is better and your better is best." Shall we say that again?

It's quite fun. "Good, better, best, never let it rest, till your good is better and

your better is best." I love all the B sounds in there. "Till" is short for "until". "Good",

"better", yep, "better" is better than "good", but "best" is the superlative, yep, so we've

got a comparative, something is better than another thing, and superlative, the best.

Never let it rest, never let your efforts rest until your good, like a decent effort,

has become better than it was, so you've improved, and then your better is your best effort.

So, there are two different ways of interpreting this. It's either according to your own possibility

or comparing is better about someone else or better is it to do with how you were doing.

That's up to your interpretation.

Star Wars, Yoda, "Do or do not, there is no try." What do you think is meant by that?

Do or do not, there is no try. So, lots of people say, "I'm trying to give up smoking.

I'm trying to get fit. I'm trying to learn Chinese." Yeah, well, Yoda says, "Don't try,

either learn Chinese or don't learn Chinese", which is quite a nice way of thinking about

it.

So, learn English or don't learn English. Obviously, we want you to learn English and

speak English and think in English and speak to yourself in English.

Billy Ocean, this is from a song a couple of decades ago, "When the going gets tough,

the tough get going." So, the going, it means like when life, when the going gets tough,

when life starts to get really difficult, the tough get going. So, those people who

are mentally strong get going, like get into motion. They really start working hard to

make sure that they are coping when life is difficult.

Okay, so just two meanings of going, different meanings. How many times have we got this

word? Winston Churchill, "If you're going through hell, keep going." Yeah, and we'll

find a rainbow at the end. I think that's quite self-explanatory. So, as I said, I was

trying to choose these quotes as they might have things that you could say as just short

sound bites when you're having a difficult day.

So, what would we choose from Confucius? Which few words would you choose from this one?

As long as we don't stop, maybe. This, I've chosen because it's quite easy to remember

because it's got such a clear pattern to it. Good, better, best, you could say to yourself.

Am I just doing something okay? Am I doing it better than before? Am I doing it the best

possible? Good, better, best, good, better, best. This is quite easy to remember. When

the going gets tough, the tough get going. "Keep going," says Winston Churchill. Mother

Teresa, "Yesterday has gone, has finished. Tomorrow has not come. We only - we have only

today, so let us begin." We've got to be in the present tense, not spending too much time

worrying about things that are going to happen.

So, I hope that has been of some interest to you. I wonder if you're more a person like

me who sort of criticizes themselves, or whether you are someone who prefers affirmations,

or whether you like the idea of choosing something like this to talk to yourself in English.

Be good to have a conversation below where you guys are sharing any things that you find

useful to say to yourself. Maybe you can find a nice quote or a line from a song in English.

Let's share the ideas, keep the conversation going.

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Otherwise, thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next video.